critical quotes Flashcards
Mack, ‘The World of Hamlet’ (?)
‘Hamlet’s world is pre-eminently in the interrogative mood.’
Hui, ‘Horatio’s Philosophy’ (horatio)
‘he drives the plot at the beginning, interprets it in the middle, and narrates it at the end. Horatio’s appearances mark pivotal moments of revelation’
Shapiro, ‘1599 – a Year in the Life of William Shakespeare Shakespeare’
‘Hamlet was born at the crossroads of the death of chivalry and the birth of globalisation… they cast a shadow over the play… reinforce the play’s sense of nostalgia… a world that is dead but not yet buried. The ghost of Hamlet’s father… not only evokes a Catholic past, but is also a ghosty relic of a chivalric age.
Bradshaw - ghost
‘What we make of the play…, depends on what we make of the ghost’
Smith, ‘Hamlet as a history play, not a tragedy’
‘the ending of the early modern play must have resonated with contemporary fears that a foreign military power would annex England on the death of Elizabeth’ … ‘to dare to think forwards, to a time post-Elizabeth, was a crime’ – smith
GRINDLAY
‘The trouble with ophelia’
‘The trouble with Ophelia is that she is nothing. Mild, submissive and frequently silent’
DUSINBEERE
‘Shakespeare and the nature of woman’
‘Her whole education is geared to relying on other people’s judgement, and to placing chastity and reputation for chastity above even the virtue of truthfulness’
Trowe - women
‘Shakespeare’s preoccupation with the uncontrollability of women’s sexuality’
Showalter, Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism
‘For most critics of Shakespeare, Ophelia has been an insignificant minor character in the play, touching in her weakness and madness, but chiefly interesting… in what she tells us about Hamlet’
McEvoy, ‘Hamlet’s “Mighty opposite”’
‘the audience gets the impression that Claudius genuinely loves Gertrude in a manner which contrasts greatly with Hamlet’s feelings for Ophelia’
‘There is a clear contrast with Hamlet here, and perhaps a modern kind of tragic heroism in his clear-eyed contemplation of his situation.’
A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy (on 3.3)
‘This incident is, again, the turning-point of the tragedy. … but his failure here is the cause of all the disasters that follow.’
Freud
‘Hamlet is able to do anything – except take vengeance on the man who did away with his father and took that father’s place with his mother, the man who shows him the repressed wishes of his own childhood realized.’
Neely, ‘Documents in Madness’ - on shakespeare’s presentation madness
‘Shakespeare … dramatises madness primarily through peculiar language… characterised by fragmentation, obsession, and repetition’
Neely, ‘Documents in Madness’ - on ophelia vs hamlet’s madness
“Whereas her madness is somatised and its content eroticised, Hamlet’s melancholy is politicised in form and content. … it manifests itself in social criticism, and is view as politically dangerous”
McEvoy, The Hamlet Sourcebook - on the graveyard scene
‘in thematic terms… the scene underlines how the protagonists are in effect engaged in digging graves for one another; death for them is not far distant’
West, ‘The dramatic function of the gravedigger scene in Hamlet’ - on nihilism
‘the intent of this episode is not so much dramatic as it is psychological and philosophical… the cynicism and disillusionment of intellect, of a man, still family young, whose mind is baffled by thought and is too painfully aware of ends to be able to discover means’
Edwards
‘wearing his antic disposition very lightly’
fintan o’toole, ‘shakespeare is hard, but so is life’ - on death
‘What Hamlet is looking for throughout the play is a meaningful death, death that is properly done, at the right time and place, death that has significance in the order of things’
‘If he cannot change the world he lives in, make it into one that is less dominated by death, he can at least.. order the deaths that happen, make them rational.’ ‘new rationality learned at Wittenberg’ ‘you cannot live in one world according to the principles of another world. this is what we call tragedy’
Adelman, ‘Man and Wife Is One Flesh: Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body’ - on gertrude + playlet
‘Once we look at “The Murder of Gonzago” for what it is, rather than what Hamlet tells us it is, it becomes clear that the playlet is in fact designed to catch the conscience of the queen’
Limmer, ‘Male Friendship in Hamlet’
‘Significantly Horatio, rather than having been selected for the role of friend for Hamlet since birth, has been freely chosen by Hamlet himself as a mature adult’
contrast of aristotle’s ‘incorruptible virtue of true friends’ and ‘machiavellian realpolitik’ of R + G
bradshaw, ‘the connell guide to shakespeare’ - on claudius
’shows a mastery of Renaissance or Machiavellian art… The new Kind of Denmark is arguably for more concerned to protect his country than the old one was’
Knight, ‘The Embassy of Death’
‘Claudius shows every sign of being an excellent diplomatist and king. Claudius is the typical kindly uncle, besides being a good king. His advice to Hamlet about his exaggerated mourning for his father’s death is admirable common sense’
bradshaw on claudius
[Claudius] shows his mastery of new Renaissance or Machiavellian art when he works out the best way of cutting off the funds that Fortinbras needs to pay his soldiers
bradshaw on hamlet vs laertes
[Hamlet and Laertes] are more or less opposites in the
way they act and think
Hazlitt - hamlet + thought vs action
[Hamlet’s] ruling passion is to think, not to act
Hebron - humoural theory
Hamlet’s melancholy is a late example of humoural theory
…
A melancholy person is likely to be sad, pensive, and indisposed to go along with orthodoxy
Neely, ‘Documents in Madness’ - ophelia as mirror to hamlet
Ophelia in her mad scenes can be seen to serve as a
double for Hamlet during his absence from Denmark and
from the play
Olivier - decision
This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his
mind
emma smith - fortinbras/hamlet
Fortinbras… is the military echo of the cerebral Hamlet…
both men struggle with the emotional inheritance from
their powerful forefathers
emma smith - backwards
Personal loss and retrospection converge… to produce a play that looks backwards
emma smith - religion
Hamlet straddles the theological divide of early modern culture
rebecca smith
[Gertrudes’] words and actions actually create a soft, obedient, dependent, unimaginative woman who is caught miserably as the centre of a struggle between two ‘mighty
opposites’
(Richard) Vardy - claudius + corruption
[Claudius] is at the heart of the rotten Danish state and embodies the new realpolitik
[Claudius] represents a modern age typified by political ruthlessness, surveillance and secrecy
